Friday, November 7, 2008

Lakewood Experience

As part of WFX, they were offering a chance to go to Lakewood Church (the largest church in America) and tour the facilities there. So last night, Eric and I went to check it all out. It is in the old Compaq Center, where the Houston Rockets use to play. The facility holds something like 16,000 people. Craziness. I think he said they spent like $80 million renovating it. As I'm sure you can imagine, it really nice, especially from a technical standpoint. The night started with a keynote address from Joel Osteen, himself. He talked about his background with media and how they got to where they are today. Then, we were actually able to go tour their media floor. They have a whole floor dedicated to just media. It consists of a large machine room (for all their computers and backups), a recording studio (where we got to hear the group Anointed record a track), an audio mixing studio, as well as 6-7 video editing rooms for post-production video work. Amazing was all we could say. The team there was very helpful and informative and it was nice to see how such a big production is run. I think we left with an appreciation for how much work they do each week to make everything run smoothly. Here are a few pictures of our experience:

The signage at the front of the church (what you see from US 59)

Walking from the parking garage

From the back entrance

A few of the camera operators

Joel Osteen's keynote speech
(notice the camera on the large boom in the top left)

On the awesome big screen LED's

Under the big screens on each side of the stage are waterfalls...
yes waterfalls with running water. Craziness!

Their LSU stage... GEAUX TIGERS!

Eric & I in the worship center arena

4 comments:

Amy said...

I'm sure it is nice but I wouldn't personally promote Joel Osteen. He doesn't preach the gospel in fact he avoids it. That's one of the reasons he has such a large church and some many toys because he tickles the ears.

On another note, glad you are having a good time!

Summer said...

Great pics and insight! How did you get the behind the scenes tour? I've been wanting to visit Lakewood. I can't imagine worshipping every week with 16,000. Our church is building a new sanctuary that will hold 2500 and I'm excited about that. I've enjoy reading your blog! Congratulations on married life!

Laura said...

FYI... just in case... Eric and I are in NO way promoting Lakewood Church. We do not agree with nor do we promote the church or Joel Osteen from a theological perspective. This post was just to say we enjoyed the church from a technology standpoint. Hope that clears things up :)

Anonymous said...

I have to admit to some reservations about attending the conference-hosted trip to Lakewood. I differ with Joel Osteen on nearly every word out of his mouth. However, from the standpoint of technical excellence in production, there is not a church around that does it any better than Lakewood. In fact, there are few productions, outside the realm of national TV, that are any better produced. Many cable productions that are months in editing rooms aren't as well done as the Lakewood weekly services. While their message may be flawed, their delivery of that message is superb. It is a call to the Church to step up our game, and promote the Gospel with equal fervor and excellence.